Transparency list is being abused

Joint register has not been the success that the Commission cliams it is.

European Voice

6/27/12, 7:24 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 11:27 PM CET

In his article in last week’s edition of European Voice (“A year of living transparently”, 21-27 June), Maroš Šefcovic, the European commissioner for administration, writes of the transparency register as “a great success” and highlights it as proof of the EU institutions’ efforts to be “as transparent as possible”.

The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (Alter-EU) recently published an analysis of the quantity and quality of the registrations. Our conclusion was not as cheerful as the commissioner’s.

For example, a great number of law firms that lobby (and which are notorious for their opposition to transparency) and more than 120 enterprises active in lobbying are absent from the register. These are not just minor companies: big financial players such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and multinationals such as Monsanto and Apple are among them. Also, more than 70 specialised lobby firms have not registered.

Mandatory registering is difficult, Šefcovic writes, because of the lack of an obvious legal basis. In fact, this is a matter of political will, rather than of legal limittations. There are possibilities that could be considered, like an inter-institutional agreement, as proposed by the European Parliament in 2008. If the Commission takes the initiative now, mandatory registering could be achieved in two or three years’ time. In any case, registration should be a requirement for lobbyists who wish to have regular access to European politicians and officials.

The commissioner says the voluntary approach is “by far the simplest and most effective means of keeping track of lobbying activities”. Simple it may be, but it is not effective, at least not if the aim is to provide a tool that allows for the effective monitoring of lobbying. Registrants fail to reveal what topics they have lobbied on, on whose behalf and with what budget. The financial disclosure figures, essential to get a sense of the volume of lobbying, often appear to be inaccurate or misleading: in fact, more than 50 registrants claim to spend less than €1 on lobbying a year.

The register is littered with inaccurate data, misleading entries and blatant attempts to hide the real nature of lobbying activities (hence the title of our analysis: ‘dodgy data’).

Last year, Alter-EU members objected to Shell’s declared lobby expenditure, considering it to be unrealistically low. The European Commission rejected this, but shortly after, Shell adjusted its entry (it increased tenfold, from €400,000 to €4 million).

]Meanwhile, the highest lobbying expenditure for a company in Brussels is declared by the American camera-equipment producer Panavision, which declares spending €35m. This is more than ExxonMobil, Shell and GDF Suez combined, which seems rather unrealistic.

The conclusion is inescapable: urgent action is needed to remedy this situation, including more rigorous checks to identify those that currently make a mockery out of “living transparently”.